This invention relates generally to the field of telecommunications and more specifically to a method and apparatus for the adaptation of multimedia content in a variety of telecommunications networks. With the prevalence of communications networks and devices, multi-media content may now be desired in numerous formats, when these are pre-encoded this consumes significant amounts of memory for storage, bandwidth for exchange and creates complexity in management.
There are multiple sources for video creation, a constant growth in both device types and capabilities and a massive pool of user generated content with only a small fraction being viewed. The range of networks is constantly expanding (2.5G, EDGE, 3G, LTE, 4G, WiFi and WiMax) and networks and devices have varying requirements for which content should be delivered due to factors such as device screen-size and video and audio compression codecs/formats, protocol support (download, progressive or streamed), feature support (e.g. coding tools or meta data access/display), network bandwidth, transmission power and error rates or available memory or CPU.
The diversity of networks, devices, and protocols has led to a focus on the least common capability of a device or network (with a quality impact to better able devices/situations) or to strong device dependency and the management overhead and constant outdating of device specific content.
In present systems, content is typically pre-transcoded into a variety of formats that can be usable and a content management system finds a profile for a device to present properly formatted content. The variation of characteristics that might need transcoding (in the general sense), such as codec, bitrate, frame size, container type, meta information and media processing lead to an exponential increase in the number of objects that are typically maintained and substantial processing with delays is present until content is available. As only popular items are usually accessed, most converted objects will be wastefully converted and stored.
Thus, there is a need in the art for improved methods and systems for adapting multimedia content in various telecommunications networks.